Originally published at: Astronaut blood and piss are key ingredients in new cosmic concrete for construction in outer space | Boing Boing
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Space-Grandpa, circa 2150: “You young whippersnappers don’t know how rough we early colonists had it! Do you know how much of my blood, sweat and tears went into building this place? Oh, also my poop. Most of that went to the potato farm.”
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Yikes! What could possibly go wrong when we rely on a building material that requires human blood? Urine, on the other hand…could save us a lot of water here on earth.
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I would definitely read the sci-fi book that explored this premise. There is tons of high drama scenarios.
“Yes he may be brain dead from the accident but we need him still contributing his allotment of blood to finish patching the hole in annex 12; keep him on life support”
"Mam with the low oxygen levels from the hole in annex 12, the people need to have higher platelet counts or they will die of anemia; but we won’t be able to stop the leak without more donations. "
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Piss bricks, smell a little like a urinal.
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Reading that full article highlights how absolutely insane the idea of Mars colonization is.
The reason they are even talking about this is they cite the cost of transporting a single brick to Mars at $2 million.
The advantage of essentially recycling food, of course, is it minimizes the amount of building materials that have to be transported. But it only highlights how freaking much we would have to spend just on the food for the long trip to Mars, the visit, and the return.
The article estimates that a six person team could yield enough for 500 Kg of mortar, which would yield about 18 x 60 pound bags of mortar, which is less than the amount needed for a 10 foot x 10 foot wall.
Now, maybe this stuff is super efficient and you get more bricks in a wall over those two years, but it’s still going to be a tiny amount of coverage.
And there are inevitably significant costs to producing this stuff while on Mars.
The only possible smart way to ever build a Mars colony is to let robots do it and keep people away forever. Let our memories live in the machines that don’t eat and don’t need brick walls.
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Astronaut blood and piss are key ingredients in new cosmic concrete for construction in outer space.
The House Space Base that Dripped Blood… and Piss.
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I’m trying to figure out a milk crate challenge joke here, but nah
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Ah, but the robots need something for their construction supplies. I’m just glad to see humans will still be relevant! 
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This seems like some black magick shit.
Do you want DOOM? This is how you get DOOM.
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In the future, there is no waste.
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Soylent Bricks are People!!!
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Well…that may change the 5 second rule to a hard “no” for any food dropped on such a concrete floor.
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You are misunderstanding the necessities of space travel.
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On the other hand, there might be a purpose for Elon Musk that stops him from being put in the airlock. Feed him and bleed him.
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Boffins say Martian colonists could pee in buckets, give blood if they want shelter
Additional info, some links and a better header & sub-header.
And this:
At this point, we at The Register formally propose that this technique should henceforth be known as the Churchill method, since it offers nothing but blood, soil, tears and sweat. We freely admit that Churchill did not mention urine in his famous speech of May 13 1940, but we feel it is implied due to the suggestion he was frequently pissed and may have been so when he delivered it.
Dr Roberts pointed out to us that the University of Manchester team went with the name AstroCrete, but he kindly added: “Please feel free to use the reference to Churchill.”
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Well, El Reg does take the piss out of the IT industry…
Also, talk about passing bricks…
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